Meta's Subpoena Dropped – Simula One vs. Quest Pro | Hacker News Reader

Meta's Subpoena Dropped – Simula One vs. Quest Pro

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98 pointssandebert77 comments

I found the detailed comparisons interesting and also came away worried for Simula.

The Quest Pro is available this week, has pancake lenses, better GPU, is a third to half the cost and has bet on Arm which is on its way to eat productivity PCs. Simula doesn’t even run Windows, which would be a nice consolation for being stuck on x86.

Quest’s integrated business partnerships are rudimentary but are going to be adopted much faster than Simula users can figure out and share their custom workflows.

Quest Pro 2 is probably going to come out before Simula finishes shipping its initial orders next year.

We need a Simula to exist, but I don’t think they are going to be able to iterate nearly fast enough to provide to this market. I hope I’m wrong, because it’s a really cool project and completely above board in respect to future ad revenue and metaverse ambitions.

I came away feeling similarly.

Their dedication to developing a true VR computer and focusing on specs that really matter for that (PPD and raw processing grunt) are commendable, but seeing them champion the idea of strapping an X86 computer to your face in what is an increasingly arm-powered world is... concerning. "But it can run real Adobe Acrobat through WINE" is not something that gets me excited about a VR platform, but I'm likely not the target audience either.

That being said, having tried out some remote-desktop apps on a Quest 2 earlier this year, the screens are absolutely not acceptable for that purpose in terms of viewable resolution -- so if the Quest Pro really is only slightly better in that regard, I think it'll soil the experience.

If Simula can manage to tune their x86 specs to run well enough under power-limited circumstances, have at least comparable poor battery life to other VR headsets, develop a VR computing environment with usage paradigms that make sense, and do it in a headset that's somehow still comfortable to wear for extended sessions, then they may truly be ahead of the curve in a way that matters. That seems like a big ask for such a small company's first outing, but they also seem the most passionate about this category of use-case despite their scale.

I wish them the best. VR computers like the one they're working on would be a lot cooler than Meta's vision for the category.

I'm not fundamentally against ARM. But ARM in the VR world is Qualcomm, and they both didn't want to deal with us + their support for regular old Linux is (AFAIK) nonexistent.

Apart from that, x86 is IMO just easier to adopt. I wouldn't buy an ARM laptop right now (except for possibly a Macbook).

In a different tangent, I think the only way to get good ARM performance in a mobile format is to have custom-tailored silicon, like the Apple chips. Commercially available chips just don't compete with a i7-1265U or the Raptor Lake equiv.

Absolutely! The nascent state of ARM outside of iOS, Android, and now MacOS is definitely a roadblock for bringing it to projects from smaller companies like you folks.

In my eyes (uneducated, consumer-level perspective) X86 is a huge question-mark for HMD devices like this, since the heat and power usage are so counter-intuitive for small form factors -- and mitigating those concerns usually actively works against the "higher-performance" nature of the chips. (low-tdp allowances, throttling, etc.)

Like I mentioned above, I really do wish y'all the best of luck with it. I just don't envy having to be reliant on an old and power-hungry architecture just because the newer, better architectures don't lend themselves to this sort of project yet. I hope the Simula One sticks the balance!

I don't have an XR2 devkit so I can only guess, but TDP-wise they seem pretty comparable. Obviously that doesn't include boost power etc and there's stuff integrated into the XR2 that we need to do on an FPGA, but overall I've not felt like a modern x86 processor is overly disadvantaged.

I'm sure one could do a more rigorous comparison, but IMO with the recent Intel/AMD chips you get pretty good performance/power.

Yeah. I like the simula one concept and the VR "Desktop Environment" appeals to me, but I would much prefer to decouple the display from the compute, because the hardware is at different levels of maturity and because the heavy bits don't have to sit on your head - You can stick a lot more compute and battery in a backpack form factor, and even with my Vive I ended up strapping the cords to my back for cable management reasons.

If I had to buy a backpack laptop from them (And I would kinda love to have a backpack laptop + weird goggles, be kinda like the "Gargoyles" from Snow Crash) to get their display, happy to do so.

The compute pack is detachable, so you can decouple it and put it somewhere else.

I think it's a less elegant solution overall, but it's an option (eg for supine computing or to lessen the head weight).

Yea, I feel similarly.

I'm actually really excited for Lenovo's upcoming T1 wearable display. It's a monitor in glasses form, not VR, but I realized that the appeal of VR desktop environments for me is having a large screen, not the whole VR shtick.

Couple that display with output from my phone running JupyterLab, and I'll have a desktop-like development environment that fits in my pocket. Perfect for travel and long backpacking trips.

I came away feeling similarly for completely different reasons.

Obviously Simula wants to sell themselves and downplay meta for sales purposes, but a lot of their arguments in “ Philosophical Differences” section seemed to just miss the mark. Like, I think they have the wrong philosophy.

For example, simula critiqued the Quest Pro for relying on good wifi, noting you can’t use it at coffee shops. That’s a bad use case. They released a video of someone using simula at a coffee shop and everyone thought it was a joke. Productivity VR isn’t a laptop, it’s a better external monitor. You don’t take a monitor to a coffee shop (or other similar establishments). Maybe, maybe a plane is a good place. Probably hotel rooms, certainly offices and homes. Offices and homes can/will have good wifi.

They also mention window management and the (lack of) it on the Quest. Except no one (outside techies) knows what a windows manager is or has custom workflows. Instead, quest has screen management so you can have a virtual screen, and manager your own windows. I’m no Nostradamus but I doubt the future of technology rests in heavily customized window managers.

Simula also has a few points that are just wrong about the quest, such as the need for a laptop. A laptop helps, but it does have a native browser and Bluetooth keyboard support so you can totally spend your day in Gmail and Google docs and all that browser jazz without a second computer.

I do think an “untethered” future for VR is real though, like simula thinks. Quest is just also positioned to handle it through the real future apps platform (browsers) not a techie dream (Linux desktop).

For what it’s worth I think the real winner of VR productivity in the short term will end up looking a lot closer to NReal instead of either of these two. It’s cheap and comfortable, so it’s a lot easier to start using. It also entirely relies on your host computer so no one has to set up a new computer, IT doesn’t have to extend support of systems (ActiveDirectory etc) to new platforms, etc.

>I do think an “untethered” future for VR is real though, like simula thinks

I think we're at least a decade or two of battery, processor, and screen development away from making that happen though. IMHO, I'd much rather have a lighter and better headset with a cord than what these two are like.

Yea 100%. That’s why I think something like the NReal is a better short term future. If you can’t be comfortable as an all in one, then put nothing extraneous in the headpiece.

The Quest Pro looks pretty comfortable but it’s battery is like an hour so it’s not a stand-alone device that can exist untethered to a power cord.

NReal looks very interesting. Just ordered one.

They do look interesting. The reason I haven’t bought one (besides being sold out hampering my impulsiveness) is that the screens are pretty low-res compared to a regular monitor or iPhone screen. That and apple is likely to come il out with something and I don’t want more ejunk.

It's a niche usecase but it does speak to me - I struggle to be productive on a little laptop screen and would love to wear something like this not at a cafe but at a co-working space. The kind where you don't get a screen. If enough people do it it won't be embarrassing. I can also see the utility for digital nomads.

On the other hand, what I'm really looking for there is, my laptop in a virtual screen - and that's all I need. A wired/wireless headset as a peripheral for my laptop is what I need and these exist.

> They also mention window management and the (lack of) it on the Quest. Except no one (outside techies) knows what a windows manager is or has custom workflows. Instead, quest has screen management so you can have a virtual screen, and manager your own windows. I’m no Nostradamus but I doubt the future of technology rests in heavily customized window managers.

On the contrary. Using virtual screens is a paradigm that chains you to obsolete technology. Nice to interface with traditional computers but in a true VR computing interface free-floating application windows make a lot more sense than virtual screens with Windows inside them. It's just as much a stupid idea as the old Windows 32 Multiple Document Interface that office used to use (having windows within windows and causing frustration with multiple scrollbars etc)

They do this because it's something users know and because computer OSes are made with real displays in mind. But it doesn't take full advantage of what the technology has to offer. Once VR/AR productivity becomes a real thing, we will have to rethink this paradigm. Whether we call it a "Window Manager" or something more snazzy, the research has to happen and I'm really interested to see where Simula are taking this. Because they're the only ones really thinking outside the box so far.

It makes so much more sense to take a pdf document and put it somewhere in my workspace so I can glance at it, instead of having to take a whole virtual display there with perhaps other things in it or blank desktop space wasting my field of view. In a world where your entire environment (either virtual with VR or real with AR) can be overlayed with content, the concept of a "screen" is obsolete and only an artificial constraint and bother. In fact even the concept of a "Window" isn't a great fit. Why restrict yourself to 2D views in a 3D world? UI elements could actually stick out so you can reach out and touch them or the whole app could even take the shape of a 3D object. Of course apps will need to be rewritten but the same was necessary with smartphones. There's a ton of UI stuff like that to figure out.

Another comparison I can make is Windows CE. It was basically a desktop interface crammed into a smartphone. It was super awkward. Smartphones never really took off until a real UI rethink happened with the iPhone and Android. We need that here even more. So yes I think there'll be a lot of work done in this arena.

Ok, I'll agree it was a quite callous comment that I don't fully agree with either. You're absolutely right that the Quest-way of using virtual screens instead of windows is chaining you to obsolete technology. I guess my perspective is more that its a better way to bootstrap new tech through old tech. Like you said "its something users know". I think the next decade+ of (productivity) VR will be dominated by "shim" experiences like virtual desktops that just drop in a computer into a screen in a nice desk. Everyone understands what those IRL experiences are and how it works. VR is perfect for skeuomorphism, and I think it'll have a strong place for a while.

That said, while I do think the "screen" isn't the unit of graphics we'll end up with, I do think that we'll end up disappointed by how much of VR is still "boxes" of 2D content like computers and tablets and phones before it. Sure there'll be changes, but I suspect that we'll mostly see things like phone app widgets make their way out into the "virtual world". I suspect beyond UI elements, we'll (mostly) end up stuck with floating web-view pages that are still rectangular. I'd love to see a 3D world where I can flip through slack channels like a filing cabinet, but I doubt it'd be mainstream.

> In fact even the concept of a "Window" isn't a great fit. Why restrict yourself to 2D views in a 3D world? UI elements could actually stick out so you can reach out and touch them or the whole app could even take the shape of a 3D object. Of course apps will need to be rewritten but the same was necessary with smartphones. There's a ton of UI stuff like that to figure out.

I said it earlier, but this is where I think the disappointment will come. You mentioned smartphones... a huge chunk of the apps I use are basically web views, or could be (even settings apps are a half step away from a crud web app). Things were rewritten, but largely the only thing that experience wise changed was replacing a mouse with a finger and moving things to portrait.

I will also add that a truly immersive 3D "{content display/window} manager" could easily just create an overwhelming mess of info/text everywhere that wouldn't be very appealing. I think there's a real risk of "content overstimulation" that would need to be managed. The idea of PDFs here and documentation pages there and a browser yet somewhere else could be a mess of swinging your head around looking for content [1]. Today, most of the screens I consume (even at work) are with apps in "fullscreen mode" and the OS just lines it all up (or just browser tabs occupying a vill browser window). I can just tab between them and the OS handles it... and I do it looking straight ahead the whole time. Why would I want to look around a floating orb of windows to find my reference material?

Anyways, I hope I'm wrong, and I hope simula succeeds. I really do - I almost pre-ordered one, but its a little too expensive for me to buy without knowing I'll use the product. It is a full (high spec) computer after all. I really like VR and I really think there's a great future for VR Productivity, and I think it'll make work (and WFH) better. But I see photos like this [1] and I think "thats not it".

[1] https://twitter.com/SimulaVR/status/1557832672998789127/phot...

PS. I think my view on Simula is filled by that tweet. Someone said "i don't know if I want 1 window or a hundred (through VR)" and simula replied with a picture of a hundred and said "why not both". I want simula to show me an experience that looks like both.

> Simula doesn’t even run Windows, which would be a nice consolation for being stuck on x86.

I think the only issue with getting it to run Windows would be Windows lack of support for stereoscopic displays (for its OS GUI). If someone in the community really wants it and can figure that out, maybe Windows can still run in the unit.

This is assuming that there's support for installing whatever Linux distro one wants. If that's true, installing Windows should also be doable, I would think.

You can install any distro. Windows is doable in theory, we just don't focus on it.

What a bizarre article. "We've successfully convinced Meta we are not their competitors and have been dropped from their antitrust lawsuit - oh by the way here are all the ways we're so much better than this company we're definitely not competitors with."

Were Simula so desperate to shit on Meta that they needed to post this article the precise moment it ceased to be a legal risk to do so?

They were never a party to the lawsuit. Reading between the lines, they negotiated with Meta's lawyers and agreed to produce some documents/testimony in response to the subpoena.

Just to clarify: we produced no documents or testimony to Meta at all. We basically negotiated on some very pedantic things (deadline extensions and so forth), and they ended up dropping the subpoena altogether.

In Meta's defense, we found their legal team to be cordial and respectful.

A lot of these points under section 3 just seem plain false. You can certainly use the device in a stand alone way w/o wifi. You can also open individual apps as windows as well as whole monitors when using it as a PC headset.

The section about what is adequate for long term use seems to be just an opinion. Have they even tried one yet?

We acknowledge you can use native Meta apps in a standalone way (we discuss this in section 5). The problem is that there aren't many native productivity apps running on Meta.

Can you also acknowledge that 1 and 3 of section 3 are false? It absolutely does not need a PC/wifi to use. Source: I have one on my desk.

3.1 and 3.3 are talking about the Quest Pro's VR Desktop capabilities. We just added extra clarification to make this clear. We don't dispute that the Quest Pro can run its own native VR apps without WiFi streaming.

"Literally every Android app that doesn't directly require GPS" is quite a few native productivity applications.

Except sideloaded apps are stuck in the "unknown sources" category which has no icons, no sorting, no search and is sorted in "last installed" order and nothing else.

Or you can install an app launcher which is also stuck in "unknown sources". So you have to find your app launcher and launch that first - which rather cancels out any advantage an app launcher would bring.

It's a huge disadvantage and and makes running sideloaded apps you use regularly a real pain.

I wonder what the experience is for webapps like google sheets if your goal was simply to get existing PC workflows stood up.

Are you saying Android does not have productivity apps ? Cause the quest can run all of them

I think they mean Quest native.

And that's why the Microsoft partnership was so interesting.

The number of screens is a little dependant on your use case. In Infinate Office mode i.e. using the built in browser windows or 2D PWAs its all on board, limited to 3 in Quest 2 and idk on Pro. These are stand alone no external support needed. In PCVR mode as a remote desktop with Horizon Workplace/ImmerssedVR/vSpatial then you are limited by the resolution settings you want such that the total fits your Quest screen budget. I do find the PPD calculations interesting since they are right the details are not easy to find published. Color Passthrough is the big win on this Pro headset and new Mixed Reality applications will lead its adoption which is good news for everyone in the XR space including Simula.

> The Simula One has compute specs that are legitimately comparable to a premium office laptop. For example, it supports an x86 architecture (i.e. just like a premium laptop), instead of an ARM based architecture like the Quest Pro (an architecture which runs on mobile phones and other portable devices).

Pretty sure my ARM Macbook with 24GB RAM is a “premium laptop”

Yes, for sure; however, the Qualcomm Snapdragon XR2 and 12GB of RAM on the Quest Pro isn't that.

We're also fundamentally a Linux Desktop platform, which ARM is finnicky with. We wanted to give people an experience that was truly comparable to what they would expect out of a comparable premium (Linux) laptop.

> Pretty sure my ARM Macbook with 24GB RAM is a “premium laptop”

Pretty sure the M1 isn't just a generic ARM processor but rather something Apple specifically designed for their use case.

I challenge you to point to just one more vendor delivering a premium laptop experience based on ARM. Even better, please point to a chipset vendor that will license that technology to a third party to use as a platform for their hardware.

Title feels like clickbait after seeing one paragraph about subpoena and then a whole article about a different topic. Now sure what specs have to do with subpoena

The title of our blog post ("Meta's Subpoena Dropped; Simula One vs. Quest Pro") is different than the HN title: I think HN might discourage dual titles? (We weren't the original submitter of this post to HN, so didn't choose the title).

Also: originally our post was only going to be about the Quest Pro, but then we found out that Meta dropped their subpoena, and so we just ad hoc attached the news to the beginning of the post as an update to our preorderers.

I've been a fan of SimulaVR for a while, but this sour attitude, trying to put Quest down by giving arguments for how superior SimulaVR is, is low.

A sour attitude definitely wasn't intended. Meta has some misleading marketing and we wanted to correct that. Apart from that we're just comparing our products, as the Quest Pro (unlike the Quest 2) does indeed intrude on our niche.

Wasn't the whole point of the initial subpoena complaint, "we're not a competitor to Meta?" and now that it's dropped, you're arguing why you're a competitor?

The Quest Pro wasn't announced when they subpoenaed us.

Okay, so if you got re-subpoenaed for being a competitor tomorrow, will you comply with the subpoena given that your original argument is now invalid?

(On behalf of lawyers everywhere, I encourage OP not to reply to this question. I am not their lawyer, this is not legal advice.)

do you think this was a sneaky trap set up by meta?

whether it is or not doesn't make "don't respond to internet trolls", "don't make public comments about ongoing litigation", etc bad advice.

I never implied it was bad advice. I agree wholeheartedly. It seems like 4d chess to me.

Trick Your adversary into a particular defense which you are prepared to demolish.

I'd be impressed by it if a single meta lawyer's salary wasn't more then the entire simulaVR budget.

as such it looks more like a giant evil corporation having it's way with a small defenseless individual just trying to manifest their own vision for VR.

Come on. It wasn't announced officially, but it was leaked all over the place and there were almost no surprises in the official announcment, including that they're going to focus more on work not only gaming.

As others have said, I love what youre doing with Simula, and the subpoena was out of place from Meta, but you've got to work on your communication.

It seems strange to think they were compelled to compare themselves to a potential product in a court case.

The Quest Pro wasn't a shocking development. Meta has been openly talking about their productivity VR/AR ambitions.

But we've also been openly declaring these claims to not have any teeth, for almost a year now: https://simulavr.com/blog/we-dont-want-the-metaverse/

TLDR: That post is from 2021, and we basically said that Meta's product vision is to start with a social network/gaming platform first, and then backwards engineer productivity into it as a third use case; whereas we want to start with productive VR computing as our first and only focus, and engineer everything we do around that.

The Quest 3 will be really interesting. If they can really lower the price of the Pro to $300. I'm excited for the Deckard as well but doubt it will be near $400.

My main concern with the future is Ergonomics. We are practically talking about a cybernetic-interface here. It isn't cheap or easy to solve. Above all else I feel like people really just hate having a thing strapped to their face.

FWIW, "intrude on our niche" sounds pretty sour. It's not _all_ bad to have competition, especially someone with a bad rep like Meta/Facebook.

Thanks for the feedback.

Our intention is to offer constructive criticism of Meta's product vision, not a sour attitude. Meta is marketing the Quest Pro as a productivity device, but to us it doesn't seem to have much teeth: it can't replace someone's laptop, requires WiFi tethering to a host machine to be used as a VR Desktop machine, caps the # of screens it can emulate to 5, and has poor pixel density.

Are these not fair things to point out?

They started out very restrictive on their vision and ecosystem - but nowadays isn't all that made up marketing?

You can't install Linux on it sadly but like... can it run any Android app? Can it connect to a PC Linux software in any way a power user would want? Can it run any program that can practically be built for it? I feel like it can but I obviously want more and something better.

The Quest Pro will be (very soon) on shelves for customers to purchase. It's a product that exists with an app ecosystem and other users. As far as I can tell, SimulaVR won't have a product ready until at least Q4, and even then I'm sure volume will be low.

Imo the most damning part of this article for SimulaVR is this annotation:

>[6] There are lots of tradeoffs involved in battery life vs. headset weight that we still need to decide on.

The Quest Pro has already made these trade-offs, and exists as a real device with specs that are available, while Simula is still trying to figure out the balance of your device?

It's unfair to compare a released product to something that might be available to consumers sometime in the next year.

> SimulaVR won't have a product ready until at least Q4

How much closer to Q4 do we have to be for it to qualify as "real soon" in your book? I'm asking as it is Oct 24 with Q4 starting Nov 1. Unless, I'm not business savvy and have my fiscal confused with physical again?

I would forward this question to Simula, since their website still says:

"We expect units to ship no earlier than Q4 2022, with priority given to Founders Editions."

Given that, as you've said, we're in Q4 and there's no updated information available on their purchase page, I doubt it's going to be any time in the next few weeks.

No, absolutely not Q4. We need to update that, but Q1-Q2 23 depending on how things go with suppliers.

>The Quest Pro cannot replace your laptop or PC. In fact the Quest actually needs a laptop or PC to WiFi tether into (for VR Desktop), so that it can emulate and stream a (limited number) of host monitors in VR space.

You can either run apps on the device itself or on another machine if you need more compute. The are plenty of web apps and sideloadable android apps that can already be used even on Quest 2.

>The quest Pro isn't reliably portable. On top of this, if your WiFi connection is spotty or simply unavailable, you don't even get to use the device's VR Desktop

When using apps on the device itself this isn't a concern. When good wifi isn't available Meta sells a wifi dongle you can plug into your laptop.

>The Quest Pro offers no true window management. The Quest Pro is only able to emulate (a limited number of) monitors on a host machine. It has no awareness of the individual apps, and doesn't allow you to separate or combine them into your own unique views or workspaces.

There is a window manager, but it isn't that flexible. In the future it could change though. Meta's headsets gain a lot of new functionality with the frequent updates they receive. All of the cons for the Quest Pro except for the PPD can be fixed in a future update down the line and are not hard limitations of the product.

This post says the Simula One has Wi-Fi 6.

The store[1] and these older posts[2][3] say it has Wi-Fi 6E.

The CPU also seems downgraded in this post from i7-1265U to i7-1165U.

[1] https://shop.simulavr.com/

[2] https://simulavr.com/blog/upgrading-to-alder-lake/

[3] https://simulavr.com/blog/32gb-ram-upgrade/

Typo. We'll fix it

i7-1265U and Wi-Fi 6E is correct.

Yes, thank you for catching. We just pushed the fix.

The original table was copied over from an old post (when we were still using 11th Gen Intel), and I somehow missed updating it.

I got an Oculus 2 for my kids. Although cool for 10 min, I can't see myself liking it- not now- nor ever. I know this is what every previous major tech was tagged as- but seriously- I just can't imagine how this is the way of the future. Maybe I'll read this comment 20 years later and wonder how I was so naïve.

I am surprised by the amount of support for Facebook here by a community that is normally pretty critical of Facebook

That being said I think VR is amazing for games and similar environments but I find the idea of using VR goggles to view "screens" for work totally dumb. There is no way I am ever going to be doing that.

> I find the idea of using VR goggles to view "screens" for work totally dumb. There is no way I am ever going to be doing that.

I think it's going to depend on the person, their work, and their alternative work environments. The main point of value may be to offer a way to better isolate yourself and your work from your physical environment.

I remember it was posted here prior... I wonder if this is THE best way to report wrongs from big tech and then shame them into retraction so the little guys don't get crushed.

This product looks very cool but I think I’d rather just have a screen or two and continue to alt tab through my applications. Is that an option?

Sure. You can either run a 2D WM inside Simula or use it with something like Virtual Desktop

I like your logo very much.

Meta realized that Simula is selling a 3d render instead of actual hardware.

https://simulavr.com/blog/first-glimpse-of-review-units/

I'll believe it when its sent to reputable third party reviewers.

I honestly don't understand the hostility these guys get. Is there something you're specifically skeptical about? Is it their ability to make/obtain an appropriate compute pack? Their first review unit video shows one. It's physical size seems doable, though it's still being worked on. What's the problem?

I mean, if it's simply skepticism, you can just wait to see what happens, but you comment like you're trying to call them out on something.

Their comments here and elsewhere make them look like a tipical Kickstarter scam.

They seem quite transparent in their work via their blog. What do you think they could've done better? What screams that their blog posts are lies? I ask as someone who hasn't experienced a Kickstarter scam.

To me, their comments are a mix of sales-talk to raise funds for the units and diplomatic play to get Meta to leave them alone.

It's kind of incredible how we can basically document our entire development process and people still go "it's a Kickstarter scam"

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